


Wake Up Call

by evilicious



Series: Nothing Personal. [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Spoilers, let him sleep, quiet night at Akechi's, thanks Futaba
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 23:59:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15130607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilicious/pseuds/evilicious
Summary: Akechi Goro just wanted one night of sleep. Just one. That's all he asked for....sowhythe hell was everyone making such a racket?





	Wake Up Call

**[4chan]** Get over here ASAP. You NEED to see this.

 

 **[Joker]** I’m in class right now.

 

 **[4chan]** TRUST me, this is worth it.

 **[4chan]** Remember how Inari nearly lost his scholarship because he skipped 6 days of class to watch trees grow in the park before I convinced him to go home and go to sleep by installing a 24 hour surveillance camera?

 

 **[Joker]** I don’t, but now I am intrigued.

 

 **[4chan]** Well~~~

 **[4chan]** I caught a crow on candid camera!

 **[4chan]** You witnessing this is of dire importance to the PT.

 

 **[Joker]** can’t just leave in the middle of class. people might suspect I'm not really living my life as a honest high school student.

 

 **[4chan]** Do a flip or something. sneak out while no one’s looking.

 

 **[Joker]** Kawakami's glaring at me.

 **[Joker]** I think she's going to revoke my privileges.

 

 **[4chan]** Wink and dive out the window.

 

 **[Joker]** Third floor.

 

 **[4chan]** You’re the MC. You’ll live.

 

 **[Joker]** Can’t it wait?

 

 **[4chan]** Yes, but I can’t.

 **[4chan]**   UGHHAfine

 **[4chan]** Here

 **[4chan]** https://youtu.be/VGY6P9aSG70

 **[4chan]** cropped and uploaded to yt. you're welcome.

 **[4chan]** You now owe me a trip Akihabara.

 **[4chan]** Have fun at school. nerd.

 

 **[4chan]** I’m going to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

                To the majority of the world (or at least the part of the world that lived in Tokyo area where he was relevant), Goro Akechi was the flawless, charismatic Detective Prince who solved cases and then appeared on daytime television to talk in minimal detail about these now resolved cases instead of spending the time doing something more productive, such as solving more cases. When Akechi wasn’t the Detective Prince, he was the student with the best test scores in Tokyo who studied every evening, went to Cram School every Tuesday, and laughed at Makoto every chance he got in between. When Akechi wasn’t the over-achieving honor student, he was the black-masked hitman who ran around making bird noises in the Metaverse while killing people with a spray-painted NERF gun and a modified toy light saber, both of which were stolen from other children during his last couple stints in foster care. When he wasn’t the Murderous Metaverse Menace, he was the bastard son of Masayoshi Shido who spent hours trying to convince himself that it didn’t count as homicide if they transformed into erection-shaped chariots _before_ he blasted their brains out while pretending he wasn’t crying into cups of coffee outside ~~his crush’s~~ the primary suspect’s bedroom. And, during the increasingly rare instances when Goro Akechi was just _Goro Akechi,_ he was angry, bitter and sleep-deprived, and most of his accumulated anger and bitterness could easily be whisked away with just a single night of shut-eye. When he _finally_ had an evening where he didn’t need to study, or kill anyone, or work on a report or, god forbid, hang out with _friends_ , he allowed himself to indulge in the rare luxury of something scientifically proven to be an absolute necessity to human survival.

                Sleep.

                Two whole, entire REM cycles. Eight hours of glorious, uninterrupted sleep.

                So, naturally, the teenager had every right to be more than marginally infuriated when, exactly three-and-a-half hours into blissful unconsciousness, he was jolted back to the hellscape he called reality by the sound of violent and aggressive screeching. The sound was like a poorly-timed symphony of fake nails scraping against a chalkboard, only worse. So, so much worse. It echoed through Akechi’s empty, sparsely-furnished living bedroom like an over-zealous toddler determined to mark every inch of available space in finger paint. An _ugly_ shade of finger paint. If Akechi had to assign a color to the sound, it’d be a vibrant yellow splattered with dried-up chunks of mahogany. God, Akechi _hated_ unstained mahogany. Shido’s desk was mahogany. Akechi hated that, too.

                But, right now, Akechi couldn't allow himself to bask in his hatred for Shido's desk because of that _fucking noise_.

                He wanted to scream. He wanted to claw his ears off and curl up into a ball in the middle of his bathroom and cry himself back to sleep. Curse his fucking neighbors—! How _dare_ those goddamned peasants bombard his silence with their bloody banshee bullshittery-- Oh, how he wanted to break down their front door and set Loki on them, to watch their shadows as cried and begged for mercy that would never come--! And he could, do it, too! He would fry them like toast and take them through a whirlwind of despair until they thoroughly comprehended the pain and suffering he’d gone through to get thus far. And then, right before dealing the final blow, he would freeze them to make the end even more chilling--

                Akechi blinked. He only had curse and bless attacks. Why was he mentally envisioning himself threatening someone with fire, wind and ice? Somewhere along the line, he stopped making sense to himself, but it was difficult to think too hard about it because of whatever the _hell_ that rancid racket was.

                And then, just as abruptly as it started, the ringing stopped. The silence quickly filled with a couple innocent _beeps_ from Akechi’s six-year-old second-hand T-Mobile G1 that he'd dug out of a cellphone charity bin back when Androids were still considered knock-off iPhones and bitcoin was a joke. At the time, Goro hadn't had any allowance of his own, nor had he been living with foster families who would pay for his phone plan, so he mostly used the phone for the dictionary, calculator and camera apps, and, later, for browsing the Internet when the shell of a cell became too old to update software. His phone was one of few things that was _his,_ and probably his only possession with actual _value_.

                That's why it came as so much as a surprise when, one stormy spring afternoon two years ago when he was huddled up in a corner of a public library working on an assignment that he'd _never_ be able to finish with all the noise at the Home, he'd discovered a new app. Which should have been impossible, since his phone was too old to _download_ apps in the first place, let alone install malware that hadn't even been in existence until several phone generations after his. Curiosity peaked, he'd tapped the flashy red and black icon and then panicked when he realized the time. He'd muttered something bitterly under his breath as he hastily packed up his things-- Akechi couldn't remember the exact wording, only that it was something alone the lines of 'better get back to the Home before Caretaker Wakahisa realizes one of the loons escaped the nut house.' The fifteen-year-old Akechi noticed the lack of people during his sprint through the rain, but hadn't truly realized something was _off_ until he arrived at the address he knew to be the Home and found himself staring up at fifty-stories of cement and barred windows instead of mossed-over brick.

 _An insane asylum_ , his eyes had widened in horror. Back then, Goro thought he was _nuts_ , and, really, even with hindsight and two-years' of experience, he couldn't fault himself for thinking that, nor could he fault himself for anything, really, except walking inside the place. Seriously, why had he done that? That was such a stupid thing to do. Maybe it was from the lack of horror movies he never watched on Friday nights at the sleepovers he never got invited to, or maybe he was just so shocked that he decided not to think rationally for five minutes. Regardless, instead of booking it the hell away from the spooky sanatorium like every single survival manual recommends doing, Goro Akechi became the token loud-mouth dumbass who waltzes right on in to the obvious sociopath’s lair.

                And, oh _wow._ How had he not seen it coming?-- the interior of the institution was even scarier than the outside. Wakahisa's asylum palace had been completely devoid of color; everything was bathed in a palate of gray, reminiscent of a black-and-white 50s flick. Akechi had wandered around the place for a couple hours, lost the entrance, and then was trapped alone in this hellish horror film for _days,_ not that he had any means to be aware of it at the time; every clock hanging on those white-washed walls was either broken or running at some odd pace. The second-hands' constant and suffocating tick-tick-ticking and the click-click-clicking of heels as nurses with grotesquely over-exaggerated makeup walked from room to room set the rhythm for the continuous loop of ominous music that seemed the resonate from the walls themselves. The melody was a hauntingly familiar lullaby Goro was _sure_ he had heard before yet the song itself had no consistency and changed tunes and tempos at random, speeding up at undiscernible intervals that had the poor teenager convinced he was being chased only to look over his shoulder and realize no one was there.

                He soon built up an immunity and stopped reacting to the music, but he never got used to the screams. Every so often, the nurses would turn a corner or materialize out of nowhere toting a patient strapped onto a cot. And all the patients, every single one of them, were children Goro recognized as the other orphans boarding at the Home. As soon as the nurses took them to a room, a doctor would show up, the door would lock and the screaming would start.

                Akechi hadn't needed to be a detective to realize he needed to _get out._ And fast. The sooner, the better. But he couldn't. The hallways of the asylum were scattered and nonsensical. No matter how much mapping he tried, he couldn't seem to orient himself, and his investigations had led him to the discovery that, no, he wasn't as crazy as he'd thought he'd been going, the floor plans _actively changed_ the moment he wasn't looking.

                Shortly after realizing that closing his eyes, covering his ears and walking straight forward landed him right in front of the exit, his caretaker's cognitive counterpart, the head doctor, found him. One botched lobotomy attempt later, Loki awakened and freed him from the straight jacket he'd been forced into and that's why Akechi's black Metaverse outfit looked like David Bowie's Lazerus music video went through it's middle school MCR phase and spent way too much money at Hot Topic.

                Goro was still kind of pissed about that, by the way. _In any other scenario,_ his image of a rebel would've been so, so much cooler.

                Red Cape? Check.

                Helmet he could actually remove? Naturally.

                Form-fitting but flexible fabric that allowed for maximum comfort and movability while still stylish? Of course.

                Polished boots? Nothing else would do.

                Fabulous cuff links with hidden blades? Oh, definitely.

                Badass belt with a swanky emblem on it? Hell to the _yes._

                And feathers. Those were fundamental. He'd need an array of gallant red feathers stylistically placed throughout the costume.

 _But no,_ he'd awakened his persona in a situation where he was wearing a large, second-hand bleached-white cotton straight jacket in the middle of a padded room where everything was white and child-proofed to prevent him from hurting himself, so _of fucking course_ his depiction of a rebel had _bladed fingertips,_ broken buckles, three-inch-heels, and a one-size-fits-none unitard that physically hurt to wear.

                He tried talking to Igor about it, and the old bastard just hohoho'ed at him condescendingly as he explained that there “are no take-backsies on the path to your rehabilitation” and Goro, justifiably, got pissed; the only thing he needed rehabilitation for was the ridiculous, borderline-illegal amount of rash cream he had to bathe in after an afternoon spent waltzing around the Metaverse in a costume that DESTROYED his crotch and strangled the his body like a teenage rape-victim trying to smother her unwanted newborn in the bath tub because her Catholic parents hadn't let her go through with a hanger abortion. Akechi had Runner's Nipple and he didn't even run. He had to walk around with band-aids plastered to his chest on a daily basis like some kind of reverse-trap on the off-chance Shido would give him no heads-up before demanding his services.

                And the suffering only got worse with age. When he first got his black mask outfit, he was at the tail end of the voice-crack stage of puberty. Two years later, his balls had fully dropped, his shoulders were wider, he'd grown three inches and two shoe sizes, and the costume _was still a perfect fit for his fifteen-year-old self._ Meaning that Goro Akechi, age seventeen, spent many a rare moment of solitude sitting in the corner of the police headquarters listening to podcasts of Drag Queen tutorials for the most comfortable “tuck and hide” techniques on his phone and taking notes to the best of his abilities while also awkwardly positioning himself so that it was impossible for anyone else to see what he was writing or the screen--

                Wait.

                Akechi’s thoughts blasted back to the future.

                Phone.

                The beeping.

                Was that..?

                His ...cellphone...?

                Could that have been…. Did…

                Did he just get…. _a phone call?_

                Akechi blinked in befuddlement.

                Against all odds and rationality, he just got a phone call.

                The detective had to reiterate that point that to himself multiple times— _phone call, phone call, you just received a phone call on your cell phone that can also be used to call people, someone just called your phone_ —before it fully sunk it.

                But who would be calling him?

                Nobody called him, at least not anyone he hadn’t phoned less than ten minutes prior and was expecting, so this was unprecedented.

                He had the cheapest phone plan available, the five-for-five plan, which allowed him unlimited call-and-text with five people of his choosing. Since Shido was the one paying his phone bill, those five people included a Yakuza boss, an IT programmer, the director of the SIU, Sae Nijima, and Shido himself. (Goro had to argue with Shido to get Sae on the list; originally, his fifth person was some washed-up nobility, but Shido finally relented when the hitman explained how much he didn’t want to explain to his lawyer coworker why she couldn’t contact him before 9 pm or else he’d have to pay 5 yen for every minute and 15 yen for every text.)

                None of his contacts were particularly chatty; usually it was _him_ initiating the call, and most of them just texted him some location and a time as if they were planning some drug transaction. Which, if he was being honest with himself, (which he rarely was), was probably less shady than what actually transpired at those little meet-ups.

                And then it started again. Five seconds into the infamous Samsung whistle default tone, Akechi took a sitting leap out of bed, and landed in a heap on his desk on the other side of the room with the upper half of his body flopped over a pile of mildly important documents, successfully giving his ribcage a new layer of bruises, and accepting the call before the end of the first ring.

                “I, uh-hello?” Goro cleared the sleep from his throat, praying whoever was on the other line hadn’t heard that abysmal excuse for an introductory statement. “This is the cell phone of Akechi Goro. Who’s calling, please?”

                “I saw a video on the Internet. Explain.”

                Goro yawned and immediately went into the Smart-Ass Mode™ he used as a defense mechanism to hide his crippling self-loathing and fear of failure. “With modern technology, anyone can simply upload anything to the web for all to see with a touch of a button. It’s really quite fascinating, but I’m not entirely sure of how all the bits and bytes work myself--“

                “Akechi.”

                The detective pulled the phone away from his ear and glanced down at the caller ID.

_Campaign in the Ass._

                Oh. Shido was the one on the other line. Of course he was on the other line. Nobody else would be rude enough to call-not text, _call_ \- at—Goro glanced at the window—dark-o-clock. And when Shido called, it was never for a little pillow talk before bed.

                What a fan _tastic_ way to wake up.

                That was sarcasm.

                “I apologize, sir. What has you up at fu—“ the detective bit back the words “fuck-o-clock” before they could escape his mouth and swallowed down all the other profane descriptors that came to mind and opted for something a bit more _diplomatic._ “—such an _unusual_ hour?”

                “I didn’t call you to make small talk.”

                Of course he didn’t. That would involve sticking his head out of his ass and being a decent person for more than two minutes.

                “My mistake. You said something about a video…?”

                “Someone uploaded a video of you onto Redtube—“ Akechi choked. Shido either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “-and it’s gone viral. Over six million views in three days.”

                “O…kay?”

                “I’m faxing it to you.”

                “I don’t own a fax machine, Shido-san.”

                Shido muttered something under his breath and Akechi just barely managed to catch the phrase ‘backwards generation.’

                “Can you text it?”

                The politician scoffed. “No, I will not _text you._ I'm not _twelve._ Do you have a pen?”

                "No..."

                "Find one."

                "Can I go back to sleep instead?"

                Shido let out a low, guttural noise that sounded like a whale colliding with the front of the Titanic.

                Translators note: that means 'no.'

                “Ahahha, that was a joke. One second, Shido-san,” Akechi wasn't entirely sure why he started ruffling through his bed sheets in search of a pad of paper and pen that he knew weren't there, but he did before logic sunk in and he rummaged through his desk drawers instead. “Ready,” the teen announced.

                The other end of the line was mostly quiet.

                “Shido-san?”

                “I'm finishing up a game of Solitaire,” the politician sounded annoyed, as if Akechi had purposely interrupted the game he had started in the forty-three seconds it had taken Goro to find a pad of paper.

                The detective waited patiently for ten minutes and nearly dosed off twice before Shido let out a self-satisfied sigh.

                “Are you finished?” Akechi yawned.

                “Give me a _moment_ to enjoy the fireworks, Akechi. You kids really need to learn to appreciate the smaller things in life.”

                “It’s one in the fucking morning,” Goro grit out before he could stop himself.

                Fuck, Shido was going to _kill_ him.

                Protip? Don’t swear at your boss. Especially if your boss happens to be the single most influential politician in the Easter hemisphere with his hands in the cookie jars of every police station and organized crime syndicate in the nation.

                “Sorry for that, I must have—"

                “Akechi,” the politician’s voice was cutting. “It’s 7:30.”

                Ace Defective examined his phone screen. Huh. 7:32 pm. What were the odds?

                “Oh.”

                “Are you coming down with something?” Shido didn’t sound annoyed, but he didn’t sound empathetic either.

                “No, sir.”

                “Because last time you came down with something…” He trailed down in warning, and Akechi had to wince.

                Last time our sweet pancake price had been down with the sickness, he’d collapsed with a fever in the middle of an algebra test and had to be escorted to the nurse’s office by two of his _way too touchy-feely_ female classmates. The date of this event perfectly coincided with the last time Sae Nijima, his emergency contact, had taken a day off. She’d had her phone on silent for an entire 48 hours, so the school nurse was forced to look into his records to find another person who could take him home. The only other phone number she could find belonged to none other than Masayoshi Shido who was, _technically_ , his legal guardian.

                Akechi had blacked out, so he didn’t remember most of the details, only that Shido had personally showed up to avoid having to explain to one of his lackeys _why_ he had custody of a local celebrity, and the nurse called the politician ‘Akechi-san’ at least twice without being sued. Apparently, the seventy-year-old woman gave him three cookies, called him ‘cute’, and refused to let him leave until he promised to take the rest of the day off work to look after Goro’s fever. (Shido surprisingly followed through, in what would later be remembered as both The-Closest-Goro-Akechi-Ever-Got to-Having-a-Paternal-Relationship-With-His-Father and That-One-Time-Akechi-Was-So-Sick-He-Was-Seeing-Colors-Outside-the-Metaverse-And-Shido-Gave-Him-An-Unopened-Can-of-Soup-And-Showed-Him-His-Massive-Model-Ship-Collection.) Normally, this would have resulted in several people losing their jobs, but something about this little old lady earned the respect of Masayoshi Shido, and Akechi was angry at himself for not being conscious enough to take notes.

                “I’m fine,” Goroble’s delivery of the line could have won him an Oscar because he was most certainly _not_ fine. Mentally, he was a ball of barely-suppressed rage wrapped in several layers of aluminum foil and stuck in the microwave; it was just a matter of time before he blew, and he’d be damned if he didn’t take the entire kitchen out with him when he did.

                Shido feigned concern for exactly five seconds before reading aloud the URL. “H-t-t-p-s...slash, slash you-t-u-b-e-dot-com-slash-watch…question mark? Is that a question mark? I can’t tell if it’s a question mark or an uppercase ‘P’.”

                “I wouldn’t have the slightest idea, Shido-san.”

                “I’m going to turn off the light so I can see better.”

                “Or maybe you could just just stop wearing orange-tinted prescription sunglasses indoors.” Akechi muttered as he heard his boss bumble around.

                “It’s a question mark. Question mark-v—”

                “Are there two question marks, or is it the same one?”

“There’s just one question mark, Akechi.” Shido sounded exhasperated. “Using multiple question marks is redundant, unprofessional, and, most importantly, a waste of everyone’s valuable time.”

 _Implying reading aloud a bloody youtube URL over the phone isn’t a waste of_ my _valuable time_ , Akechi inwardly Goroaned. “Of course. It was silly of me to ask.”

“It was,” Oh-no-Shididn’t agreed flatly. “After the question mark… equal sign- uppercase ‘L’-p-p-h-big ‘Q’-S… wait, no. That’s a five, not an ‘s’--z-thirty-r-k-question-mark…” His voice cut off as he highlighted the web address only to realize there were twenty more characters in the URL.

                “Damn this.” Shitwreck swore and hung up.

                Akechi sighed in relief and fell back into his bed in an unceremonious heap of “I-don’t-care.”

                It took twenty minutes for the trigger-happy teen to fall asleep after ending the call, and twenty-two minutes for Shido to arrive outside his door—No, not the apartment door, his _bedroom_ door. Shido apparently had a spare key now. Wonderful.- holding an iPad in one hand, a bag of wine bottles in the other.

                He waved the iPod in Akechi’s face. “Explain this.”

 

\---

                As of six days ago, Akechi was a Phantom Thief.

                Well.

 _Probational_ Phantom Thief.

                Meaning that, _justice_ ifiably, the Thieves _did not trust him_.

                Which was more than understandable, seeing as most people don’t immediately trust those that blackmail them. It was fine. Akechi wouldn’t hold it against them. After all, he was more than used to flipping others’ expectations of him and proving himself, so getting on the thieves’ good side would be child’s play, as long as he acted the role of the charismatic, justice-seeking detective and not some moody edgelord whose definition of ‘coping’ with daddy issues is wearing chains and screaming along to [Black](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtAvqswqVbw) [Veil Brides](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si5Bbh16ETo).

                Therein lied the problem.

                When he went to the Metaverse, Akechi played the role of the villain, and he played it _well._ He was Carrion Crow, the Night Fowl, the Black Mask, Prince of the Shadow Realm, Delegate of Darkness. He was the Master of Mindfucks, the Bastard Behind the Breakdowns, Insanity’s Instigator, and _low-key_ laughing his ass off the entire time. He was the one who smirked when as his prey pleaded for sympathy. He was the one who calmly pulled the trigger instead of turning a blind eye.

                And, while he sometimes _did_ go to Mementos solely for investigative purposes donning his white prince getup, it often bled black in the heat of battle or when his temper got the better of him.

                That wouldn’t happen. Akechi wouldn’t let it happen. Just like everything else in his life, he would practice and practice and practice until he fit the part perfectly from all angles.

                Before he’d become familiar enough with the Metaverse to be fully comfortable prancing around in there, Akechi went to the park with the toy lightsaber he’d gifted himself as a moving-out present. There was a small, isolated opening in the woods, far enough for him to not be visible or audible from one of the less-traveled hiking trails, but close enough that he wouldn’t risk getting lost. He would set up for an afternoon, work on his aim, do pushups and swing around toy sabers until sundown.

                The last thing the dicktective wanted to do was get caught training in Mementos. Four days ago, he returned to this special spot to yell one-liners and battle imaginary shadows with only nature as his witness.

                Or so he’d thought.

 

                To his horror, Akechi presently found himself staring at Shido’s iPad displaying in-focus footage of himself yelling pretentious bullshit while shooting Nerf bullets into the air and knocking them out of the sky with a piece of plastic that _whooshed_ and lit up every time it was swung. After ten minutes of waltzing around, power-posing, dancing, and berating himself for swearing, the tiny Akechi started laughing maniacally and taunting two crows only to accidently pull the trigger and knock one out of a tree. The real Akechi swallowed uncomfortably at the memory as he watched himself rush over to the bird in a panic.

                “I’m so, so sorry!” came out of tablet’s tinny speakers right before the boy on the screen was dived-bombed by every dark-winged bird of prey in Tokyo. Despite being several meters away from the camera, the moment where his eyes went from widened surprise to narrowed slits was captured clearly. When the video ended a minute later, Akechi was standing at the other end of the clearing, completely unscathed, with a trailed of felled birds behind him.

                Shido looked at Akechi—the one next to him in a red t-shirt and a pair of graphic Featherman pajama pants- expectantly.

                The teenager could feel the man’s eyes on him, yet he couldn’t rip his eyes away from the now blank tablet. He wanted his bedding to swallow him up and spit him out somewhere- _anywere_ \- that wasn’t _here,_ in this reality where the one person he spent years trying to impress had seen footage of him pretending to be a superhero. Heavy silence was all that answered Goro’s prayers of being abducted from the situation.

                “How many people have seen this?” he managed to choke out in a broken whisper.

                “Six million.”

                Six million people. That’s roughly _two thirds_ of Tokyo.

                “And why,” Akechi wet his lips. “Why are you showing this to me?”

                He knew the answer, but he still had to ask. There was a fragment—a _small_ fragment- of hope left within him that was thinking that maybe, maybe he was wrong and Shido wouldn’t say—

                “Some movie company saw it and wanted you to audition for a part in their next movie. And they called me.” Which made sense, as _Shido_ was the one the head of the television station called to book Akechi.

                But a movie? That wasn’t what teenage heart-throb expected at all.

                “…I beg your pardon? They wanted me? In a movie?”

                Shido waved it off. “Yeah, something Featherman.”

                Featherman was only _the_ greatest movie/anime series Akechi had ever seen. He’d never wanted to be an actor, but if he was in Featherman? There was _no way_ he’d turn it down. Being on the set, seeing the costumes in person, getting to possibly _wear_ one of the costumes? That was only his childhood _dream._

                “Really?” Dark and dangerous tried to tone down his excitement as much as possible. Some of it still seeped through his forced nonchalance, but Shido didn’t notice.

                “Don’t bother worrying about it. I told them no.” Shido waved off lightly before his voice stiffened.  “And don’t waste my time like this again. I don’t want any more phone calls like this again. I do not know you. You do not know me. Understood? Good.”

                The sounds of his dreams being crushed hadn’t even finished echoing through Akechi’s desolate heart when the door slammed and he was, once again, left alone in his apartment. Only this time he wasn’t tired and there was an unwelcome bag of wine bottles on his table.

                Goro chucked the entire bag out his window and set off some poor shmuck's car alarm.

                God, he hoped it was Shido's.


End file.
